


Feanorian Week 2020

by RaisingCaiin



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Body Image, Dark, Dark!Maedhros, Dark!Maglor, Drama in Nargothrond, Gen, Good Uncle Celegorm, Heavy-handed animal husbandry metaphors, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Politics, Scheming, child endangerment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:42:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23291125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaisingCaiin/pseuds/RaisingCaiin
Summary: Day #1: Maedhros > adjusting/coping, orc-features, scarsDay #2: Maglor > childhood, Elrond & Elros, redemptionDay #3: Celegorm > uncle & nephew relations, childhood, love/unrequitedDay #4: Caranthir > people skills, betrayal, appearancesDay #5: Curufin > manipulation, ruling of NargothrondDay #6: Ambarussa > regrets, twinDay #7: Nerdanel and Fëanor > reunion, travel, healing
Relationships: Maedhros | Maitimo & Maglor | Makalaurë
Comments: 26
Kudos: 53





	1. day #1: Maedhros

**Author's Note:**

> better finished late than never XD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day #1: Maedhros > adjusting/coping, orc-features, scars

His hands had never been particularly soft or fine, for all that Maedhros had been raised a prince. They had always been rawboned by nature, and prone to chapping; the nails grew unkempt if left to their own devices long enough, and his youthful days spent in the great library of Tirion studying oratory and the political sciences amidst their people's oldest tomes had often left his skin dusty and dry.

No matter, his father had assured him. Being a prince wasn't about decking yourself out in jewels you hadn't polished or gold you hadn't shaped yourself.

"People, they'll want proof of what you can do," Fëanor had told him somewhat airily, with a confident wave of his own hand. "Might as well give them that proof in your hands, so they can see that you work and what it is that you actually _do_."

It had been a dig at Nolofinwë, of course – by that point, what _hadn't_ been a dig at Nolofinwë – but the memory of this particular exchange has remained with Maedhros long after so much else had gone.

It was because of the hands. Looking back, Maedhros is sure of it. 

His father's hands had been rough and scarred, Maedhros remembers. This had come from Fëanor's time at the forge and in the workshop, surely, wielding the tools of his many trades – but that does not matter so much, anymore. Now, it is Fëanor's admonition that your hands let people what to think of you that remains with Maedhros.

He does not know exactly how long he hung from that accursed peak, but it was long enough – and cold enough, solitary enough – that it is only now Maedhros is beginning to realize the extent of what it is that he has lost.

All other memories of his father. . . the trust of his former people. . . the support of his brothers. . . the list of what has slipped away from him goes on.

His ability to sleep soundly for more than a watch. His shapely form. The rich copper hair for which he was named. His keen grey eyes, once aflame with the light of the Trees and that now, by all accounts, have grown slit pupils and burn predator-gold like the fallen creatures he once fought in the pits below the Iron Hells.

And his hands.

His _hand_.

His right arm now hangs limp and distended, useless for much of anything after being stretched beyond its endurance for years upon years without end. His right hand is gone. And although Maedhros does not blame Findekáno for these losses. . . if anything, sometimes he thinks that he would have rather liked for Findekáno to take his life before taking his hand.

For should his people – or a stranger, or even his own kin – look upon Maedhros's hands now in order to learn something of who and what he is, they would no longer see him as the scholar, leader, warrior, or prince that he once was. 

Instead, if they looked upon the single mutilated, claw-tipped hand that remains to him, they would know him for the orc that he has surely become.


	2. day #2: Maglor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day #2: Maglor > Childhood, Elrond & Elros, Redemption

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun A/N: This is actually a rewrite of a snippet from an AU that I've been picking at, on and off, for a little over 3 years now! Someday I'll get back to it full time, we'll see. . . 
> 
> Anyway! If this Maedhros seems unlike the one I usually write, that's why. He's a very different character in that AU, and this is far from the worst thing we see him do there.

Makalaurë watches, somewhat dully, as his older brother cleans his sword. Maedhros's blade glistens red with blood, all of it their own people's and none of it their enemies', and Makalaurë knows that he should feel some sort of way about that fact, but he is just – tired. Of all reason of the madness that Maedhros continues to lead them into. Tired beyond all reason and all further action.

Or so he thought. But then the latest reports are brought to them, and Makalaurë sees the dangerous way that Maedhros's odd golden eyes blaze back to life at the news brought by one soldier in particular.

"Take me to them," Maedhros rumbles, and Makalaurë is suddenly worried. Even without hearing anything that Maedhros has been told, he _knows_ that no good can come of this sudden interest. When his brother leaves, following the soldier that had made the instigating report, Makalaurë summons the last of his energy and hurries after them.

The soldier, a hard-bitten Noldo who has remained with Maedhros's company years beyond telling, leads them through the halls of the palace of Sirion. If he were feeling more uncharitable this sorry morning, then Makalaurë might let drop some snide comment that the place hardly deserves the name – it's all mud and wattle and driftwood, much like every miserable hut squatting in the reeds around it. But the horrible sight of Elven bodies left limp and bleeding in every corner – and most of them Gondolindrim too, at that – seals Makalaurë's mouth tighter than any threat ever could. He purses his lips, trying his best not to look to closely lest he recognize faces, and hastens onward.

They are led into a set of chambers deep within the palace, to a room where they find a set of soldiers jeering as they poke their bloody swords between the slats of a closet door.

A child – no, two – wail behind that door. An adult voice speaks up, hushing them in fearful tones, but it is far, far too late for that. 

"Make way!" the soldier who has accompanied the last surviving sons of Fëanor now calls, and the fighters who have crowded this tiny room to torment the last survivors of Sirion turn, new taunts and blasphemies already forming on their lips, but all fall utterly still when they realize that Maedhros Uruk-Eyes has joined them. Their ranks part like the river before him, and Maedhros steps forward without a word or a glance of acknowledgment to his fighters.

He is completely focused upon the door and whoever is behind it – so focused, in fact, that he rips the thin-slatted wooden barrier right from its hinges in his haste to expose whoever hides behind it. The violent movement reveals a short waterfall of silky black hair and beneath it, a grey-clad back dotted with pinpricks of blood where the soldiers' swordtips have landed.

The soft cries are coming from behind this elf, whoever they are, and Maedhros grunts in grim satisfaction before leaning forward. Makalaurë has no time to utter more than a wordless sound of protest before his brother is winding a mailed hand in the Elf's hair and dragging them to their feet, pulling them out of their hiding place.

The other elf – a male of Noldo stock, Makalaurë can tell from his hair and coloring – cries out with pain, struggling against Maedhros's grip, but the eldest Fëanorian is inexorable. He methodically winds the length of his prisoner's hair about his fist, forcing the other elf up to the tips of his toes. "Who are you, and these?" he rumbles, yanking at the fistful of hair until his captive is forced to lean back, baring his throat.

But the other Noldo remains mute, only shaking his head through the tears in his eyes, and Makalaurë is struck by his composure. He has the look of one who will give his life before giving up anything else, and Makalaurë is just opening his mouth to tell Maedhros so when he is forestalled.

Two whirlwinds come bursting from the closet.

"Leave him alone!" one cries, streaking forward to pummel at Maedhros's armored legs with all the ineffective ferocity of a boy just past toddlerhood. This tiny creature is joined by another seconds later, the two of them so similar in looks and build they could almost be twins.

Void take him. Hadn't it been said that Elwing had borne twins?

Suddenly Makalaurë knows exactly who he is looking at, and why Maedhros had rushed here upon hearing that report.

Void take them all. Whatever Maedhros means to do with these two, it cannot bode well for them.

"Boys," he tries gently, crouching down and balancing upon the balls of his feet. "Boys," he tries again. "Will you not come to me?"

Maedhros huffs in grim amusement as he draws back his left leg and boots away the one twin who had grabbed him there. The boy falls with a small cry of pain, a sound echoed by the Noldo whom Maedhros is restraining by the hair.

"Boys!" the stranger pleads, much more urgently than Makalaurë had. "Go back, _now_ ; do not speak to them!"

But the child Maedhros had kicked is already struggling back to his feet, an unsettling anger burning in his eyes. Maedhros, perhaps seeing this, smiles thinly and gives his captive's hair a particularly cruel wrench. His captive cannot quite restrain another cry of pain.

The kicked boy roars with all the impotent fury of youth and the twin still clinging to Maedhros's right leg shrieks "Stop hurting him! Stop hurting Erestor!"

The soldiers are beginning to shift their feet, rumblings of amusement rising at such prime entertainment, and Makalaurë knows that there will be bloodshed if he does not step in.

( _More_ bloodshed, that is – there will be more bloodshed, to add to the tally of all the rest they have spilled this dark morning.)

"Peace!" he interjects, from where he is still crouched, an arm outstretched toward the child at Maedhros's feet. "My name is Makalaurë, little one, and I do not mean to hurt you. What is your father's name, and yours?"

"No!" the stranger in Maedhros's grip cries, agony clear in his voice, but the child clinging gamely to Maedhros's leg seems to consider this information a fair bargain to volunteer in exchange for Erestor's safely.

“I am Elrond, son of Eärendil,” he tells the sons of Fëanor.

“And I am Elros!” his spitting image cries from across the room, finally hurtling back toward his twin and their caretaker as if his anger alone could pull Maedhros down.

“Boys!" their erstwhile protector cries, twisting in vain to try and wrest his hair from Maedhros's grip. "Please! Be good for me – go back, be quiet, and I will come back for you as soon as I can.” 

With a swift movement, Makalaurë stands and intercepts him, scooping the child up in his arms before he can reach Makalaurë's brother again. He struggles and screams – a sound echoed by both his twin and Maedhros's captive – but Makalaurë hangs on to him, grimly: this is better than a kick with any of Maedhros's full power behind it.

“No need,” Maedhros says grimly. His iron-hard right arm snakes about Erestor’s throat as the fist in his hair eases, and the Noldo begins choking as Maedhros shakes him.

And then Maedhros is looking to Makalaurë.

“Well done, brother," he says softly, and oh but that contemplative tone sends _shivers_ up Makalaurë spine. "Sons of Eärendil, is that so?” the eldest son of Fëanor continues, looking from one child to another, and for all that he intones it as such, it is not really a question. “That makes this one a lucky prize for us, then: perhaps seeing her mate thus beset will compel Foamwhite to reconsider her imprudent claim to our Silmaril.”

Her – _mate_? Does Maedhros not know that the boys are said to be only half elven, that they have an Adani father? Whoever Maedhros is holding, this Erestor creature, he is not the boys' father and it is hardly likely that Elwing Foamwhite will consider his life an ample trade for her sons.

Void take it, Makalaurë decides on a sudden impulse: he will not tell his brother of his suspicions. Let Maedhros think what he wishes, so long as it preserves these boys' lives.

Maedhros shakes the other twin – Elrond, he'd named himself – off his leg now, and Makalaurë darts forward to recover the second child as well.

For a long moment, Maedhros considers him and the armfuls of wriggling, crying children he is struggling to contain. Then he nods decisively, turning to haul his struggling captive from the room. "I will take this one out to seek Foamwhite. Finish them, Makalaurë."

“ _Nelyo_!” Makalaurë cries in protest behind them.

“Do it!” Maedhros shouts back, as the Noldo he's holding captive shrieks with fury and fear.

Makalaurë already knows that he will not, even if that means he must fight every soldier in this room. He has lost one twin already today – he will not lose these two, so much younger and more innocent, as well.


	3. day #3: Celegorm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day #3 _[albeit many days late]_ : Celegorm > Uncle & nephew relations, childhood, love/unrequited

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> are we going to see the brothers using different versions of their names in every fic? quite possibly

Tyelkormo is busy in the kennels below Nargothrond, bent sweating and swearing over the thorn well-embedded in a hound's paw, when Tyelperinquar finds him.

"Uncle," the boy says softly, the title both a greeting and a question on his tongue as he leans against the bars of the kennel with a quiet sigh.

"Nephew," Tyelkormo returns, looking up at the youngling just long enough to give him a nod and a quick flash of teeth before bending back to his task. The hound at his feet flinches, yelping as a bead of blood wells up from her paw, and Tyelkormo huffs triumphantly as the top of the thorn finally comes free. Both he and his long-suffering patient know that there's much more still lying beneath the surface, and there is still a battle to be had in working it loose, but at least this is a start. 

Tyelperinquar seems content to remain quiet as Tyelkormo continues his ministrations, fussing over the hound and her irritated wound. But Tyelkormo is not so distracted by one creature in pain that he cannot also sense another, and he knows from Tyelperinquar's silence and his folded arms that there are reasons why he is here, rather than in the forge with his father or the city's great underground marketplace with Finduilas.

But creatures in pain, Tyelkormo knows, cannot be backed into corners; if they are, they will fight with every tooth and claw they have. So he waits for his nephew to speak. 

"Atar is fighting with Findaráto again," Tyelperinquar says eventually. He sounds tired, and worn, and so much older than a boy of his scarce centuries should sound.

"Is he," Tyelkormo grunts. If that is so, then this is one thorn that he cannot treat for his nephew: no, indeed, this is more akin to an iron trap spread in the middle of the path, the kind that leads to limbs that must be gnawed free if their bearer is to live.

"I don't understand," Tyelperinquar admits wearily. "Findaráto sheltered us when no one else would, didn't he? But to hear Atar speak, this kindness wasn't enough and Findaráto ought – I don't even know. Make us lords here, I think?" 

Tyelkormo huffs. Tyelperinquar, poor pup, has not even head the whole of it – has not yet understood the way that his father is so determined to carve out something of this strange middle-earth for his son that he will fight gods and monsters and his own kith and kin for the boy. Add to that Findaráto's infuriating beauty, and the impregnable strongholds of his city, and of course Curufinwë has been driven half-mad with self-loathing and envy.

Yet another reason why Tyelkormo would rather deal with the dogs. Feed them, run them, pull thorns from their paws, and they would give their lives for you. If only Elves were so simple. Tyelkormo thinks that even he would be able to understand a love like that, but Curufinwë has never worked this way – as Tyelperinquar himself will have to learn soon enough. 

Until then, though, Tyelkormo is here to show him that another type of love – the kind that is quiet, and runs with the hounds, and pulls thorns from one's paws – exists too, and is Tyelperinquar's as much as his father's more fiery version is.

Beneath Tyelkormo's calloused but patient fingers, the remainder of the thorn in the hound's paw is finally pulled forth. Tyelkormo tsks at the minute thing, a bit of bramble or elderberry perhaps, before clicking his tongue at Tyelperinquar and dumping the sharp mite into the boy's waiting hands while he himself bandages the animal's paw.

"What should I do with it?" Tyelperinquar asks quietly, cupping his palms around the bit that has been causing so much pain.

"Up to you," Tyelkormo tells him, just as quiet. "Could take it up to the yard and then the woods, I suppose, or – just burn it, keep others from stepping on it too."

If he were his brother, or their father, then this would be a perfect metaphor for everything that Tyelperinquar faces. But Tyelkormo is only Tyelkormo, and the thorn is only a thorn, and Tyelperinquar looks up from the little task he's been entrusted with just long enough to nod, short and solemn, as he cups the offending bit closer.

"I'll take care of it," he says quietly.

Tyelkormo never doubted that he would. 


	4. day #4: Caranthir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day #4 _[albeit many days late]_ : Caranthir > people skills, betrayal, appearance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why does every Feanorian week, _every Feanorian week,_ always turn into Terrifying Tolkien week

"Any questions?" Maglor asks lightly, looking up from the hastily-scrawled map upon which he has been outlining their plan of attack on Doriath.

On parchment, it looks simple enough. Besiege a single spot at the Girdle; overwhelm the guards as they enter; set fires as they travel so that the marchwardens are occupied in tasks other than attacking them; force their hostage to point them to Menegroth, and overwhelm Dior, her king.

But that's all on parchment, and oh Caranthir has _so_ many questions.

"One question," he says brusquely, and fights to suppress a shiver as Maglor turns to him with a light trill of laughter. The sound is so obviously forced and false that it sets Caranthir's teeth on edge.

"Oh?" Maglor asks. Even the firelight beside him is not enough to hide the manic glint in his eyes, a terrible light that had sparked and caught hold there the very same night that the Sons of Fëanor had received a messenger confirming that Dior of Doriath held the Silmaril once captured by his mother, Lúthien.

"Yes," Caranthir grits out. He knows that same spark he sees in Maglor's eyes also burns in Maedhros's and Curufin's; he doubts that he would see it in Celegorm's eyes, even if his older brother would hold his head up for more than a minute at a time these days, and he knows he wouldn’t see it in Amrod's gaze, which has been cold and dead since the ships burned at Losgar. But it is for them, and the unwitting folks in the forest ahead of them, that Caranthir plows on.

"Why are we doing this, Maglor?"

There is a collective intake of breath around him. Celegorm goes stock still, like an animal freezing before a predator's eyes; Amrod actually turns his head. Curufin is glaring with all the fiery anger he can muster; Maglor looks shocked for an entire breath before shaking himself out of it. Maedhros from his place at the edge of their circle does not even stir, or raise his orc-gold eyes.

"Well?" Caranthir demands.

"Are you saying that you do not wish to reclaim our father's jewels, Carnistir?" Maglor asks silkily, obviously recovered from his momentary surprise. "Do you mean to say that you would ignore the Oath you once swore alongside us, or abandon our cause just as we reach the knife's edge that could mean our first success in centuries?"

As if Caranthir could do either of those things! No, sadly, he swore the same bloody Oath with the same bloody passion as all his brothers had that fateful night outside Tirion, and Caranthir knows that he will be feeling the pangs of that decision for the remainder of his bloody life. Even now, the Oath is digging fang and claw into his heart at even the thought of turning aside from the Silmaril hidden somewhere in Doriath.

But that's not it. This is not the only way.

"Why can't we simply treat with them, eh?" Caranthir asks Maglor. "Much less loss of life that way. Much easier, too."

"We already tried that," Curufin breaks in for the first time, but Caranthir waves him off.

"Hush, Curvo, the grown-ups are talking now. Maglor, one attempt at diplomacy isn't enough to say that the whole exercise has failed. You know this, right?"

Curufin splutters at being treated like the child he's acting, but Maglor only cocks his head at a strange angle that Caranthir is fairly certain that necks aren't meant to be bending at.

Never mind: he pushes on. That's what he's good at; that’s what he does. "Look, if we turn up with blades waving and torches blazing, we're settling for a fight and they'll know it. It won't matter how many fires you set or guards you rout – that spooky eldritch forest over there? That's their home, and they'll fight to the death protecting it, themselves, and their king."

In his heart of hearts, Caranthir is pretty sure that the whole killing-other-elves-over-shiny-rock is far more wrong and senseless than any of the things he's outlined so far, but he knows his audience: if there was ever a time when such things would have swayed the Sons of Fëanor, particularly the older ones, than those years are long gone. He's left with this – appeals to supply lines and strategies.

"Maglor, see reason," he demands.

For a moment he thinks he's reached the strategian-poet his brother used to be, not the fey-eyed creature who wears his skin these days. But then Maglor laughs, another of those strange false trills that Caranthir hates with every fiber of his being, and Caranthir knows that this battle has been lost.

"So you are afraid to die for the cause you once swore yourself to?" Maglor asks quietly, when that hideous laughter has tapered off. His eyes gleam in the firelight, in their own light, as golden and as alien as Maedhros's orc-eyes. "No matter – that is a sacrifice that I am willing to make, even if you are not." 

A shiver runs its way up Caranthir's spine, and he knows that some of them will die here in Doriath, their bones claimed by the roots of these unfriendly trees. And what is worse, he can see the promise in Maglor's eyes that Caranthir himself will be among those dead, whether he dies by the enemy's hand or one of his brothers'.


	5. day #5: Curufin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day #5 _[albeit a few days late]_ : Curufin > manipulation, ruling of Nargothrond

Curufinwë leans back in his seat, shaking a little, as Findaráto makes his dramatic exit, his Avari guard dog trotting at his heels with a snarl for the rest of the room.

He has been planning his opening moves against his cousin for several seasons now, but he hadn't expected to be handed such a golden opportunity, and so soon. The throne room of Nargothrond is in chaos: the Man Beren has regained his feet and lowered his ring, and now stands looking warily about this chamber of utter strangers, while at the front of the room, Artaresto stands looking down at the silver crown in his hands like he cannot trust the evidence of his senses. As if he cannot believe what he has been left holding, or what it means for Nargothrond to be _his_ to rule now.

Well. Curufinwë will do something about _that_ soon enough. As soon as his hands stop shaking, in fact.

In the meantime, he plasters a smile to his face and leans forward. "Well, your highness," he tells Artaresto, savoring every second of the panic that flits across his younger cousin's face at being addressed using this title. "I hope that _you_ at least can see reason about not running around after Silmarilli, when all these good people would have been put at risk by your doing so?"

Artaresto nods, but slowly, like he is trying to wake himself from a terrible nightmare, and in lieu of actually speaking, he looks down at the crown in his hands again. As if it might hold the answers he needs to the predicament that he's found himself in.

And here, Curufinwë realizes, is the first of his chances. He takes in a deep breath and stands, willing his hands to still as he walks toward the dais and the throne that will one day be his, not Artaresto's.

He stops short at the step, as if awaiting Artaresto's permission. When his younger cousin says nothing, only blinks, Curufinwë ascends, holding out both hands in offering, palms up. "Allow me."

And, without waiting this time, he takes up the silver crown of Nargothrond from Artaresto's unresisting hands, savoring its cool weight and shapely edges for a single breath before settling the silver ornament gently atop Artaresto's golden locks.

"There," he says genially, stepping back from Artaresto's side but not leaving the dais altogether. "Now," he continues, to the crowd this time: "Shall we all acknowledge the new King of Nargothrond?"

The first _hail_ that rises is a little too weak for Curufinwë's liking, but the cries grow in strength as the people repeat them, and by the end, he can hear actual enthusiasm in the words. The Man Beren has fled, now, and Finduilas is nowhere to be seen; meanwhile, the ten sorry fools who had volunteered their lives for Findaráto's little suicide march file quietly from the room, no doubt to go wet the former king's boots with their silly tears.

And Curufinwë smiles. One step at a time, he reminds himself, and this was a major step indeed.


	6. day #6: Ambarussa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day #6 _[albeit a few days late]_ : Ambarussa > regrets, twin

Telufinwë wakes with a start, sitting bolt upright in his bedroll. His dreams have been troubled of late, disturbing to the point that they wake him, but tonight is different, somehow.

When he turns, though, he can tell the reason immediately. Pityafinwë is not sleeping beside him – in fact, his twin is not beside him at all.

That is more than enough to alarm Telufinwë. He disentangles himself with a struggle, then bolts from the tent looking for his brother.

He and Pityafinwë are the only two among the Noldor who have shared a womb and a first breath of air; their fëa are so close in nature that many have deemed them the halves of one whole, a single fëa split between two hröa. But whatever the nature of what they are, it has given them something of a bond, he and Pityo; and Telufinwë is glad of that bond now, here upon a shore so utterly dark and devoid of even the reflected Tree-light that they had had in darkened Tirion.

He follows the sense of his brother out beyond the camp and then down the shoreline, toward the stolen Teleri swan-ships that had carried them here. He has not gone far before he can hear something splashing in the water – that, and the sound of Pityo's sobs.

His eyes are adjusting now, if slowly, and there are stars enough that eventually Telufinwë can make out his brother, who seems to be trying to climb a guiding rope up out of the water and onto one of the swan-ships. Telufinwë has so many questions, but from the anguish radiating across their bond, he can tell that this is probably not the best time to be quizzing Pityo on what is paining him. Instead, he simply splashes out to join his twin, and together, the two of them manage to clamber on board the swan-ship.

Huddled there upon the deck, Pityo's story comes out in gasping fits and starts – he wants to go home, and he doesn’t care if the Valar punish him or the Teleri attack him or the Noldor under the command of Nolofinwë and Arafinwë reject him, he is tired and scared and he thinks they have done the wrong thing by following their father here.

Telufinwë hushes him and holds him tight, letting Pityo cry himself to sleep in his arms. He disagrees with his twin entirely – there can be no good outcome of going back now, what with everything they have said and done still so raw and bleeding behind them – but he decides that that is a matter for the morning to come. 

For a moment he considers trying to maneuver Pityo back to shore, but his arms are tired and he does not think he could manage his brother's weight for such a distance. At least it will not be so bad a thing to spend one night aboard the swan-ships, he decides. Nothing can happen to them here, except Fëanaro's disappointment that one of his sons doubted their direction enough that he preferred a Teleri craft to a Noldo tent for a night. 

But that is a matter for tomorrow as well. And as he drifts away, Telufinwë's dreams are much calmer now, though they do seem to reek of smoke.


	7. day #7: Nerdanel and Fëanor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day #7 _[albeit a few days late]_ : Nerdanel and Fëanor > Reunion, Traveling, Healing

She hears the rumors first – gossip from the village-folk, stories about a young man, a stranger, who wanders the rocky northern shore where none but Nerdanel herself ever roam anymore.

Nerdanel is – furious. All of Aman is open for the Returned and the Reborn, yes, and she supposes that she wishes them joy of tromping across everything with their clumsy feet and wondering eyes, but –

She gave up Formenos and returned here for a reason. This is the very tip of Aman, a wild place where storms seem to rise from the earth itself and the winds will whip the unsuspecting out into the waters faster than they can scream for aid. Its craggy rocks and towering cliffs speak to Nerdanel in ways that the gentler southern climes have long since lost their power to affect her. Here, the village folk do not know her as a sculptress, or the mother of seven sons lost to the wilds of sunken Beleriand, or the wife of the mad prince, the now long-dead prince, Fëanáro. They know her only as Nerdanel, grower of herbs and maker of soaps, and the only one who dares wander the rocky shores singing wild songs right back in the face of the wind.

So, to learn that a stranger is traipsing across her sanctuary. . .

Nerdanel barely pauses to snatch up her great waterproof boots before storming from her little cottage and striding out towards the shore.

For once, the rumors prove accurate. The stranger is young, and he is male.

But the rumors had not prepared Nerdanel for the very familiar face that he wears. Fëanáro's, to be precise.

He watches her with interest, head cocked to the side, as she first stumbles to a halt and then gathers up her wits to continue approaching him. He is – he looks so young. The body that they had released him from the Halls in is barely grown; he looks to be perhaps only the same age he had been when he began courting her.

Speaking with him unsettles her. He does not grow angry when she demands his name and his purpose on this rocky beach, but shares both freely: his name is Fëanáro, and he came here seeking refuge from the large cities, where people either flocked to him like a prophet or shunned him like a plague.

"And the worst of it is that I don't even know why," he says, chuckling abashedly as he kicks at a stone. "The Maiar promised that I would remember everything, in time, and they gave me books to help me learn about what my old self did, but – "

He trails off, but Nerdanel can guess what he would have said. Fëanáro had always been an avid student, consuming any and all knowledge he could reach, but he had always learned best by hearing and doing, not sitting still and reading. She rather doubts that he made much headway into any of the books he'd been given, particularly if they had been anything like the dusty old tomes that the libraries of Tirion are so damnably fond of.

"But enough of me. Who are you?" the young Fëanáro asks her. Brightly, too, as if they are not stood amidst the howling wind; happily, easily, as if the question itself is easy, a simple reciprocation of the conversation she had gifted him with.

Nerdanel frowns.

She could tell him anything, she realizes. That she had been his wife; that he had abandoned her and stolen their sons away on a mad venture that had gotten them all quite brutally killed.

But he is looking at her with such an open face, with such wonder and fire and curiosity, that Nerdanel has not seen in an Age or more, and all of a sudden, she feels every one of the years that separate them – the years that she has lived, the years that he has died – lying heavy like so much driftwood atop her shoulders.

"I am Nerdanel," she tells him quietly. "Maker of new soaps and spinner of old tales sometimes, when you get a little liquor in me."

A particularly ferocious gust of wind tears its way between them, and before she realizes it, Nerdanel has held up her arm to keep the young Reborn from toppling over onto the rocks. He smiles at her in thanks, so utterly like and unlike the man she had once loved, and the driftwood weighing her down lightens just a little at the sight of it.

"You'd best come home with me," she tells him, not even thinking of what she is saying until the words have already slipped out. "Listen to me, now; this part of the world isn't kind to strangers."

And for the first time in many an Age, Fëanáro smiles and follows her.


End file.
